Ernst: You can't fix stupid, but you can fix their cats

Legislature considers adopting trap/neuter/return as a statewide tactic to control feral feline populations.

Eric Ernst

Every day, irresponsible people decide they no longer want that kitten (now a cat) that looked so cute when they bought it for their child's birthday.

So they get in the car, drive to a place where they've seen cats congregating — maybe a farm, or a restaurant, or a vacant lot in another neighborhood — and they dump their responsibility on someone else.

As we all know, the world has plenty of stupid, callous human beings, so now it's also full of wild-roaming cats. There is a solution, at least a partial one. We could round them up, neuter them and return them to where they were found.

We're talking about the cats, by the way.

For the humans, we're going to rely on education. That's why the trap/neuter/return solution is only a partial one.

Honestly, there's no easy answer.

The Florida Legislature is considering TNR as a statewide approach, embodied in a bill sponsored by state Rep. Holly Raschein, D-Key Largo.

The bill would let counties adopt TNR as an official approach, and it would offer some legal protection to the cat lovers and veterinarians who do the work now as volunteers.

Caroline Resnick of Animal Rescue Coalition, Theresa Foley of Venice Cat Coalition and Barbara McCarten of St. Francis Animal Rescue are good examples.

For years, they have coordinated efforts to trap wild cats, spay and inoculate them, put kittens up for adoption, return healthy cats to their original homesites and set up networks of caregivers to feed them daily.

The idea is that the vaccinations will eliminate diseases, the feeding will cut down on predation of wildlife, and the neutering will cause the population to dwindle through attrition, or, at the very least, hold steady.

As a tactic, TNR has gained momentum in the past 10 years, partly because it recognizes the unwillingness of many people to kill animals that have already been victimized by human insensitivity.

That's one reason trap-and-kill approaches have not worked in controlling wild cat populations. A sizable segment of people won't report a feral cat to animal control if they view it as a death sentence.

TNR testimonials rely more on anecdotal evidence than scientific research. Maybe it's too hard to control all the variables. Foley and McParten, who work primarily in the Venice area, say the colony sizes there have diminished over the years. That implies success.

“If it's done 100 percent right, it works, and it has been done elsewhere in the country,” says Tami Treadway, head of Sarasota County animal services. “I don't participate in it because of my position, but I believe in it.”

Some of the most vehement opposition to the state TNR legislation comes from conservation groups such as Audubon Society and the Florida Wildlife Federation.

Cats kill birds and other smaller, wild animals. No doubt about that, although loss of habitat, pollution and, in the case of birds, flying into glass windows may pose greater threats than urban cat colonies.

As Foley puts it, “Things have changed in Florida. It's not the cats.”

Nor is TNR designed to create cat communities so people can develop a hobby feeding them. It aims to slowly eliminate colonies that exist today and to prevent new ones from developing. If abandoned cats prey on wildlife, then lessening their numbers would be a good thing.

State Rep. Ray Pilon, R-Sarasota, voted for HB 1121 in a subcommittee. “No, it doesn't solve the entire problem,” he said later. “But not doing anything doesn't solve it either.”

That may sum up the most compelling argument for TNR. What we've been doing hasn't worked. This might.